East Lansing City Clerk Marie Wicks will face court summons for allegedly invalidating 473 signatures of a petition submitted by residents earlier this year.
East Lansing Citizens for a Public Servant City Attorney submitted the complaint for mandamus on Aug. 28 after receiving a negative inform of the petition submitted on June 17.
A mandamus is placed by the plaintiff asking the court to order a public official to perform a task that is required by law.
The petition was made to place on the ballot in November the option of having a local, public city attorney to end the private law firms that serve as prosecutors.
Wicks returned the petition explaining the reasons why she invalidated some signatures on July 31, exactly 45 days after the petition was initially turned in.
The petition did not pass because it did not count with the minimum requirement of signatures — 1,322.
East Lansing Citizens for a Public Servant City Attorney organizer Jeffrey Hank said that the lawsuit was the last resort after receiving no additional answer from Wicks.
“We were forced to file a lawsuit to protect the democratic process,” Hank said.
According to the complaint, 473 signatures were rejected due to different reasons such as challenged residency, lack of an affidavit and indecipherable names.
Hank said that students’ signatures were invalidated as well.
“Ninety-one people used a different address and those people were mostly students,” Hank said.
East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett said Wicks did the right thing when returning the petition with the invalidated signatures.
“In this case the city clerk did her job and Mr. Hank failed to do his,” Triplett said. “It is the petitioner’s job ... to bring the signatures.”
Triplett said the 91 signatures that Hank said were invalidated were counted toward the petition.
“Unfortunately what Mr. Hanks lawsuit amounts to is requesting that the city clerk ignore her duty and the requirement of state law in reviewing his petition,” Triplett said.
But he said the lawsuit would involve changing the East Lansing city charter, which Triplett said is akin to a constitutional amendment.
Hank is well known by Triplett and Judge Clinton Canady. Triplett said that Hank has sued the city before and Canady has been in charge of previous rulings.
A show cause hearing will be held at 10 a.m. Friday at the 30th Circuit Court.
“I’m confident that the judge will rule in the clerk’s favor,” Triplett said.
Wicks was not available for comment.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
